Give up meat and sex for Thai festival 'ticket to heaven'

A member of a Chinese opera troupe looks on as she applies make-up before performing at a shrine during the annual vegetarian festival in Bangkok late October 14, 2015. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

(Reuters) - Thailand’s annual vegetarian festival kicked off this week, a time of year when the Southeast Asian country’s meat-heavy dishes get a vegetarian makeover.

Known locally as ‘Teskan Gin Jay’, or vegan festival, it takes place over ten days and began over 150 years ago on the tourist island of Phuket, some 840 km (520 miles) south of Bangkok.

Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world and the festival is a time when Thai-Chinese, often third or fourth generation Chinese who grew up in Thailand, observe ten days of abstinence.

Eating meat, drinking alcohol and having sex are thought to be vices and pollutants of the body and mind to be cut out entirely by the truly devoted.